June 30, 2014

My heart is broken.......my kitty son passed away this morning here at home with Nate and I.

RIP- HARLEY MILLER

2001-2014

My favorite picture of my baby.

I painted "HARLEY" on a rock that Nate found.

I picked some fresh daisies for him. We wrapped him up in some towels and placed him in a box with his tennis ball, can of treats, and a photo of us. I also wrote a private note on the inside of lid.

Nate dug a deep hole in the backyard.

We both sprinkled some dirt on top of his box and then Nate covered the rest. I placed the daisies and rock on top. We have some more dirt to fill in once the dirt settles a little more. Nate also has some plans to corner off the area with some bricks.

Here's the rock and daisies up close. A little light shining down. Harley knows we loved him so much.

We love you Harley! You're in a better place and we'll meet again. We will never forget you. Having you all this time was the best years of our lives. We were so lucky to have found you when we did.

A co-worker of mine brings veggies in to share. They are grown from his neighbor and they have him pass out what they don't need. I asked him if there was a way I could get on the list to get some fresh veggies and he said yes. He gave me 2 bags. One bag with 3 broccoli heads and another bag with 3 huge cucumbers!

I was so happy! I've seen the veggies he's brought in and they look amazing. I can't wait to see what I get this week. :)

It's time for a garden update. This is week 19! This week has been very good. :)

Here's what my container garden looked like earlier in the week.

I harvested 1 cucumber early in the week. This is my 3rd successful cucumber so far. I grew these from seeds. :)

It's as big as my hand. This is the biggest one so far.

I cut it up and took it to work for a snack.

I picked one small squash.

3 toms earlier in the week.

My lettuce plants have both bolted. This happens when it gets really hot. There's been some humid days here in Virginia. This bolt grew yellow flowers. The lettuce that's on the plant is bitter so I'm not going to eat it but I'm keeping the plants for now since they look pretty and have flowers for the bees.

While walking around the backyard I found a TON of mint. It always grows and I never do anything with it.

I decided to pick some and I took some to friends.

I stored it in a big ziploc bag.

MMMMM Fresh mint! Smells so good.

I picked some daisies from the front flower bed and put them in with my basil, I have sitting in the kitchen window. :)

Here's an area in the back corner of my backyard. When we moved here, there was a playset in this area. We sold the playset on craigslist a few years ago. The area is just empty now, besides the weeds. haha This is where I want to put a greenhouse someday. For now, I put dead plants there or dump old soil. I would like to get this area weeded and cleaned up and looking good. Next year, I would like to plant some things here too. Maybe corn?

I noticed this week that I have TOMATOES growing. When some of my plants flooded (some being tomatoes) I dumped them here b/c they died. Well they came back to life and are growing here.

I figured out what this mystery plant is. :)

Here's the little guy......a little spaghetti squash.

The middle of the week the flower fell off on it's own.

And yesterday evening, here is what it looks like now. It's growing up so fast!!

Here's my beef stake/steak toms. I wished that big one would hurry up and turn red. It's got a little bit of a yellow tint to it right now. So close!! This plant is loaded with toms too. :)

I am happy to report that my watermelon is doing so good. I have several baby watermelons on the plant.

Here's one.

Another

And another.

This is what the plant looks like. If you look real close to the bottom right of pot you'll see the biggest watermelon. It's growing bigger each day!

I have a lot of small zucchini's on the plant. The one you see in picture is the biggest one yet.

Lots of bees this week! YAY! I still haven't found one in my bee water station but I hope to one day. Here's a bee in a flower.

Some more exciting news!! Are you ready? I was inspecting my carnival squash and found some tiny little guys and then I saw this one. YAY! haha....you can see my foot. ;)

Look at all of them! :)

This morning, I noticed a rose bud on my rose bush. I saved this guy last year. I left it outside all winter and pretty much neglected it. LOL It's still thriving! I think it's pretty difficult to kill a rose plant. haha

My eggplant is still going even though bugs keep going at it. :| It has several flowers on it. No signs of eggplants yet though.

I found a tiny ladybug yesterday visiting my cucumbers. :)

Here's my garden this evening. I have added a few things.

I repotted the 3 sunflowers I had growing inside my house.

I decided to move my peas and cherry tomatoes outside as well. I thought it was time. Now the only plant left inside is my aloe plant. It's doing very good. I'll get a picture for the next update.

Yesterday, I harvested some veggies.

1 squash, 6 yellow toms, peppers, and a tiny strawberry!

Peppers! :)

This is the tiny strawberry that I picked.

I have another cucumber growing. They grow so quickly.

And another. :)

More bees this morning.

I have more sunflowers coming in. Bugs keep bothering the leaves. :(

I picked 3 pea pods this morning.

And 3 toms!

Oh yes, Nate mentioned to me that our apple tree had apples. I checked it out and sure enough it did. The tree is very diseased. We need to get it cleaned up this fall.

I picked 2 little apples that weren't attacked by bugs yet. I decided to taste one. They are very tart. Kind of remind me of granny smith apples.